About Me

I thought my fairytale had come true when I married the man of my dreams - and in many ways, it has. But after 16 cycles of hope and disappointment followed by a trip to see a consultant and three failed ICSI attempts, we have a diagnosis of both severe oligozoospermia and diminished ovarian reserve to contend with, and wonder whether we'll ever get a chance to complete our family.

The clinics - dramatis personae

The old clinic - where we had ICSI #1 (October 2009) and ICSI #2 (November/December 2009)

Mr No Nonsense - the consultant, a man of few words who doesn't like to sugar the pill

Nurse Perfect - my favourite nurse

Nurse First Time - the nurse I saw on our first appointment, who is my second favourite

Nurse Not Quite - the other nurse

The XXXX clinic - where we had ICSI #3 in 2010

Mr Miracle Worker - the head consultant

Mr Greek God - the consultant we saw on our first appointment

Mr Wonderful - the consultant we saw most often during ICSI #3

Aussie Girl - the nurse we saw on our first appointment

Friday, 2 October 2009

Hope is a four-letter word

I've been awake since about 4:15. Usually I wake up some time between 4 and 5, take my temperature, roll over and go back to sleep. This morning, I took my temperature and then decided I just had to see what it was (usually I just turn the digital thermometer back off and it stores the information until I wake up to record it). It had dropped for the second day running and is now below the cover line - on day 24 of what is normally a 26-day cycle.

This leaves me in a bit of a dilemma - do I ring the clinic today and make an appointment for Monday, knowing that there's a 99% certainty AF will show up over the weekend? Or do I wait and possibly screw up this cycle by not being able to get an appointment early enough?

And in the meantime, even though Fertility Friend can't make up its mind whether I even ovulated this month, and if so, when; even though if I ovulated when I think I did we completely missed it; even though this is the 19th cycle in just over 16 months (at least I have short cycles) of TTC; even though I know with DH's disastrous sperm count and my low ovarian reserve the chances of it happening naturally are almost zero - I feel disappointed. Somewhere hidden deep inside me was the hope that all the PMS symptoms I've had the last few days were a sign of something more.

So after I looked at the thermometer, I didn't get back to sleep. I lay there worrying about when I should call the clinic, whether last month's cyst would have gone, whether I'd have a new cyst this month, how many cancelled attempts they would allow me before they said they couldn't go ahead using my eggs, what I would do if they said that...

Sometimes I think it would be easier to give up and work on moving forward and defining a new set of hopes and dreams for the future.

2 comments:

Oh honey, BIG BIG HUGS!!! Of course you must call the clinic and make the appointment. I had thought you could just rock up; if they need you to make an appointment do so immediately. On past history it's highly likely that you'll need to be there on Monday.

I'm so sorry about the drop. The hope just is, it exists and there's nothing we can do really to make it go away. It's part of what makes us human, I think, rather than just dead inside.

Call that clinic and treat yourself kindly today. We're all sending you vast amounts of love through the ether XXXXXXXXXXXXX